Shades of Black
by The Perilous Monster Eater
Summary: The contract got him into this mess, and only a bullet can get him out. Charon introspective.


AN: Right, so this for a challenge over in the fanfiction critique group. It has not been beta'd so I suppose anyone who reads this is a beta. Please let me know if something's off. Anyway, these were the rules of the challenge.

1. Must include the phrase: "That's not like you." (I changed the phrasing a bit, but I hope I get away with this!)  
2. Must be any one of the following: Angst, Romance, Humor, Songfic, or Horror. (I picked horror.)  
3. Must involve the presence (or lack of presence) of an animal. (Again, I really hope I get away with my reference to an animal...)  
4. Must be a minimum rating of K and a max rating of M. (M.)  
5. Each Segment must be exactly 1,000 words. (Microsoft Word says I have 1000, and Fanafiction says I have 1008. Seriously though? I've seen dispute my story's word counts by the thousands. To ? I don't believe you!)

Okay, so thats it then. Read and review, tell me what you think, blah blah blah. Thanks for reading!

* * *

"That ain't like you."

He, my employer, was cleaning his rifle.

Circular motions. Slowly. Just enough Abraxo cleaner to make it _shine. _Too much, and you might burn the finish off the wood. The brass finish was beautiful, with lots of intricate lines etching out many separate patterns; swirling and dark and never crossing into one another.

Yeah. _That _gun was definitely his favorite.

"Pardon?"

We rarely spoke, and it wasn't a stretch to say that we were not on speaking terms. He is the employer, and I am the employee. We are both quiet men, and we did not often discuss anything with each other outside of battle.

"_I said, _that ain't like you." I stared at my employer. A man of hispanic descent(Not for nothin', but I remember a time when things like skin color could ruin someone's life. Now? It's the size o' your gun.) "None o' the slaves. Everyone but them."

Let me tell you something about my employer. When asked, he will always say that his name is XLR. I think he is around twenty years old, and he is a skilled marksmen. All the same, he's a skilled medic, so he's always able to keep us mended. He can fix anything ain't got electronic parts in it, he's rescued every slave we come across. I am also convinced that he is the devil.

When I first met him, I recognized him instantly. Even wearing a suit of armor that he got from the Enclave(And you only got that armor _one _way.), there wasn't nobody in the ghoul infested Underworld that didn't know this guy.

S'why no one tried to stop him from coming in.

Wasn't a mistake when you hear about a guy leavin' a vault, then you hear of two places...two _big _places leavin' the map. Megaton goes first. A distress signal hits the radio. Three dog says somethin' bout' some kid in blue with a pistol. He tells us to keep an eye out...that the _Lone Wanderer _is dangerous.

A _pistol._

Megaton's a big city, well, big for what the wasteland has to offer far as cities go, anyway. The point is, Megaton's the kinda city where nearly every one carries a gun, and from what I understand, no one was lackin' for skill up there.

Anyway, nothin' but screaming and gunshots sounding out from the radio, and everyone in the bar goes quiet.

'Ventually, the radio goes quiet too, and no one really knows what to say. Three-dog put on another song, and everyone goes back to what they're doin'. Ain't nothin' we can do about it.

At first I thought…'Well shit. There's a new bad ass raider around.' Legends like Billy the Kid and Al capone…you know. They make their splash and then they're gone.

But then a few days later, Three Dog gets back on the radio sayin' that someone in Megaton needed help...and shit, when he hit the playback…

"_-elp us! He locked us in and...and theres three of us in here and...and we have sixty caps between us and we can pay if you unlock the door for us!" _There was the sound of crumpling paper, and hushed whispering. In the background, if one listened closely, there was the sound of muffled sobs. _"Um...I don't know where the key is but we're all in here. There's Billy and Mason and me and we don't have any foo--" _

The message died then, and none of us really thought anything of it, least'...not until Three Dog got back on the radio. Megaton had been wiped off the map in a blast that coulda' been seen from Rivet City.

Shit. People die in the wasteland. Kids die. It's a fact o' life.

Cities don't go up in flames. Not like Megaton did.

And it sure as hell ain't a _one man job._

"I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, Charon." His face looked the same as it always did. Slightly slanted and sharp enough to cut diamond. He always had that same smirk on his face. His voice was always calm like we were talking about the weather, and not like we had just invaded the homes of people we'd never seen before.

Not like we'd just chased them to exhaustion and gunned them down.

No reason.

He just wanted them dead. Trees grow, dogs run, mirelurks swim rain falls, and he kills people.

Facts o' life.

"Paradise falls. Biggest Slaver camp 'cross the Wastes, and we killed everyone there...cept' the slaves." I watched the way his hands clenched his rifle. Tight around the trigger, loose at the barrel. Briefly, I wonder if he's deliberatin' the question, or whether or not he wants to turn the gun towards me.

We found a camp of Super Mutants with human hostages. No one walked away from that camp alive but he and I. For the first time since becoming a gun for hire, I felt queasy.

He never stopped cleanin' his gun. Ran his hand down the brass hammer like a man's sposed' ta touch a woman.

"Yes." He talked really carefully. He always did. "It never means much when they have nothing to lose."

Once, a small town of denzians asked that we rescue their citizens from Super Mutants. We walked into the camp and killed every one o' those knuckle draggers without a problem.

The first citizen was alone in the basement, and executed upon sight.

The second was lead back to her city, and allowed to celebrate with her friends and family. We even stayed to defend them from super mutants.

They're all dead now.

"Then why fight for them?"

"It's more satisfying when they think they've something to live for."

He smiled, and even though I could no longer feel the cold, I shivered.

I think he's the devil, and I pray that if there's a god, that gun'll be turned on me next.


End file.
